CAS Quarterly

44 S U M M E R 2 0 2 1 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y What Annette does is, she mixes and matches performances the way you would when trying to make the best record. [This frees me up to do other things] such as create the room with some verb and whatever else I need to give it that live feeling; give it some slap, some perspective. And, [directors] Amy and Dan [Palladino] seem to really respond to that, and like it. So, I just dive in. Ha! I have certainly worked on shows where I have tried to do that only to have the directors show up and say, "What the hell is that?"—while I pull that ambience fader down to -40 :) Yeah, I know! And on the first episode, I was so damn scared that I had maybe gone too far or something, and it turned out, no, they really ate it up. Now I don't know how much they think I've done versus what they remember from shooting because so much of it is done live. You know, I believe the old adage, "If it's working, you just keep moving on." Speaking of room or space, I want to ask you about the show's transitions from wide shots with many people that end up, through these long choreographed "oner" [longshot] takes, focusing in on a single conversation. How are you approaching that blend, because I assume you are going with wires up to a certain point then the boom is close enough to ease in, or maybe you're leaning on the wires the whole time because it's so chaotic? Well, you've probably picked this up watching the episodes— they are talking a mile a minute! They are talking sooooo fast. I spend a long time with the wire tracks, basically with clip gain making sure all the T's are there and all the vowels are heard, and everything like that. And then I go through and try to align that, the best that I can, to the boom mic. Because, I love the sound of boom! We are stuck, a lot of times, with buried mics because of Midge's costumes; everything is so tailor made, tailor fitted for her in particular that it's hard for Matt and the wardrobe department to place a mic that's not going to get bumped, rubbed, or you name it. So, I have to rely a certain amount on the boom, and it all works together if it's done right! And Sara, my dialogue editor, uses VocAlign to give me dead on phase. You know it's just been bulletproof. So yeah, I've been relying on her prep to make me look really good! Then I do the same thing I have to do with music to all the production dialogue, too. I have to put it in a room. By the time I'm done cleaning it up enough, and we've done our pass of editorial on it, I still have to make it fit the space. Because, so often they've shot the interiors on a set and you are stuck with that [sound stage] sound; which isn't the living room, it's the set. So, it's a lot of repair work done after the fact. Well, it's pretty clear that you and your team have figured out how to manage the onslaught of dialogue, the sheer number of pages per episode. Had you worked for Amy and Dan in the past? No, prior to working on Maisel, I had never done series work. Angels in America was maybe the closest thing that we did, but we approached that show as if it were a feature. We didn't even work on it broken into episodes until it was done that way for HBO. So, I was approached to do the pilot, and it fit a window [for me] and I was like, "Sure! The crew's free, I'm free, let's do it!" They asked if I had ever done this before, and I was like, "No, but how tough can it be!" Aaaand, it was tough. It was tough. Only because it's not at the same pace you get when you do a feature. Amy and Dan are incredibly creative showrunners, but at the time, I had not yet watched anything they had done. So, I never knew [about] the ratta-tat-tat-tata of their dialogue. That was my first shock; it's a 100-page script! How can we do this in 50 minutes? And [the answer was], it's a 100-page script crammed into 50 minutes! [Laughter] Ya know, nothing is dropped; it's all there! So, that's how it happened, and I loved it. I loved the experience and it got approved to go on and they called and said, "Do you want to do it?" And I was like, "Yeah, sign me up!" And I've done it ever since. I love it. Yeah, my impression from the get go was that in all aspects—sound, picture, acting, writing—it's an amazingly well-made show. Yeah well, again, it's Amy and Dan. Part of what they talked to me about when they hired me was they wanted a feature person to [mix] it because they didn't want it to sound like television. They wanted it to sound much more full and richer. I told them I'm going to be stuck a bit with the dynamic range, and I'm not going to want to do it the way I would do a feature, [that] it's something I'm going to have to get a handle on and learn how to control. And, they were like, "I don't know what that is, but do it!" The joke that I have with Maisel is there is so much dialogue, so much movement, so much stuff going on that [the sound] has to be telling a story without that dialogue as well. I mean, that's what they are expecting. So, we jam pack that show [with sound]. It's got stuff going on that I don't think a lot of people hear, but without it… If you take out the backgrounds… It wouldn't feel the same. Not at all. And Amy and Dan know that. And there's an expectation [that we're always at that level]. I have started working on Season 4 and, you know, they make it harder every season raising the bar! [Laughter] Well, we can't wait to see it! Again, congrats all around. Re-recording mixer Ron Bochar CAS at his console

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